My mind keeps going back to that old man and his ailing wife.  They have not just been defeated by life; they have been mauled by it.  Three of their sons cut down in the prime of their lives by the direct orders of the notorious criminal tuned politician Mohd. Shahabuddin.  Two of the brothers were doused in acid and the third one, though initially let go, was also subsequently gunned down because he refused to be cowed down, and as a sole witness to the gruesome killings of his brothers, was testifying against Shahabuddin in a court of law.  It is nearly impossible to wrap your head around the fact that this savage brutality took place because the family which owned two small time grocery stores was either unwilling or unable to meet the ever increasing extortionate and illegal demands of money by the henchmen of this vilest of Mafiosi. 

   I think anybody who is mature enough to understand the realities of the state in the last 15 years or so is familiar with the ways of Shahabuddin.  In my mind’s eye, I often imagine the town of Siwan, the personal fief and nerve center of his reign of terror.  Now, small towns like Siwan kind of hold a strange fascination for me.  Nothing much happens, a quiet desperation always bubbling underneath the surface.  There is no sense of renewal, only decay.  The place and circumstances are tailor-made for someone like Shahabuddin to emerge as some kind of an intermediary between the state and the people.  And because the modern functional state has been unraveling for a while now, gangsters like Shahabuddin worm their way into the mix and almost by default become the interface between the government and the people.

   A creeping metamorphosis takes place.  The man is courted and patronized by the political class for his considerable ability to deliver votes to the highest bidder in the electoral arena.  You see, we never fail to make such a big song and dance about our democracy.  This is only partly justified; because even though the hardware of our democracy--like regular elections, peaceful transfer of power and a thoroughly autonomous Election Commission—is working fine; but the software of our democracy—like mainly to repeal of inner party democracy, credible source of funding, the near epidemic nepotism and a feudal value system—is absolutely corrupted, and has grievously compromised its capacity to rein in the likes of Shahabuddin.  When you look at his photographs or videos, you can’t escape the feeling that this man actually quite revels in his criminality.  This unadulterated realization that you can’t just intimidate people, but you can crush them to the extent that they are reduced to nothing. 

   Sometimes, I am also mesmerized by the aura of remorseless evil around him, and then I am almost thankful for the kind of vision it provides me with as to how irredeemably diabolical people creep up on society and hollow it out, aided and abetted by the destructive cynicism of the political class.  

One last word on Burkini ban and I will rest my case.  Like my good friend Sweta commented on my previous post, I am second to none in my unstinting support for freedom of choice and women’s right to be who they want to be and live how they want to live.  But you know, every time a Muslim woman fights for her purely legitimate right to put on Burking or any other kind of veil in the name of cultural identity in a liberal Western society, it strikes a blow against thousands of woman who are struggling to discard full body Hijab in the oppressive Muslim world from Arabia to Africa.  Sometimes symbolism becomes more important than substance.  After all, why were so many women burning their bras on the streets of New York and other cities of United States in the 70s during the feminist movements?

In India the moment you achieve even some minor sporting success and PV Sindhu’s achievements are by no means minor, but I hope you catch the drift.  Now everybody in this country wants a piece of her.  Ever since she has come back from Rio Olympics, there have been endless rounds of felicitations, from politicians, to private organizations, to many charities and whatnot.  There have also been some ritual temples hoping thrown in for good measure.   People just want to milk her success for all its worth.  I mean it must create so much distraction.  I just hope all this adulation doesn’t go to her head and she loses focus.

I have no hesitation in admitting that I am a shameless celebrity watcher, not so much of the Indian variety but international one.   But there is one so called ‘’celebrity’’ that I positively loath has to be Miley Cyrus.  I just don’t fancy her at all.  I know and have also seen some of the numerous naked pictures she has posted online.  But seriously, who would be interested in seine Miley Cyrus naked!!  Even if somebody pays me to collect naked pictures of her, I’d thanks but no thanks.   

In the wake of the controversy surrounding the ban on Burkini enforced by the French authorities, I was wondering where do you stand of this.  Personally, I don't have too much problem with this.  I fully understand the logic and desirability of freedom of choice for not only women, but for every human being.  However, this piece of garment is an innovative idea to exercise a kind of trendy control over women's bodies.  Even if a lot of women have adopted this out of their own choice, my point is that they have done so because of the way they have been conditioned in Islamic societies, to regard their physical self as the repository of the family's honor and shame, and I have a major issue with that.  I think anything whether intended or otherwise is able to knock down the hidebound patriarchal edifice is not necessarily a bad thing is it?  People have dissed women in bikini for far too long.  This is a redressing of balance if you will, but for entirely different reasons.

The Prime Minister is very fond of talking about development all the time.  As if building more shopping malls, airports and highways not to mention smart cities and bullet trains is the be all and end all of development.  What about the human development and more importantly the intellectual development in the country? His ministers and other party leaders continue to express regressive, illiberal and often bordering on misogynistic views in public, which deeply embarrasses and demeans we the people in the eyes of the international community.  But what has the prime minister said or done about it?  His silence on this is more deafening and eloquent than many speeches that he has given so far.  In nearly two and a half years that he's been in office, he has never come out in support of a liberal ethos in society.  I'm not saying that he has actively encouraged the forces of reaction and unreason, but his silence, this almost an Olympian detachment from the cut and thrust of the whole thing doesn't help matters either.  And to think that because of his unquestionable authority both within the party and the government, one word or gesture from him and all the hot heads and extremist forces would have fallen in line.  What do people like us make of this studied silence, that increasingly looks like a tacit approval of all kinds of vigilante groups to bully and harass, and in some extreme cases, even kill those who do not share their narrow minded and bigoted version of this nation.  The idea of material economic advancement and upward social mobility on the one hand, and an egalitarian, open and secular society imbued with a sense of justice on the other, are not mutually exclusive.  Rather they are the different pieces of the same jigsaw puzzle that makes democracy a worthwhile human experience.  The prime minister must speak out and stand on the right side of history.  He should not be running with the hare and hunting with the hound.

Qandeel Baloch was a beautiful and a spunky woman with a zest for life.  She was the darling of the social media in Pakistan.  Indeed, she was snidely but also admirably referred to as the Kim Kardashian of Pakistan depending on what you think of the American socialite.  But let me not digress.  In essence, Qandeel represented everything that is anathema to a deeply feudal and suffocating orthodox society that Pakistan can be.  To be comfortable in your sexuality, dressing the way you want to, living life on your own terms, in other words, acquiring a second skin of western mores.  Surely a price had to be paid, and pay she did.  Her own brother throttled her to death in the name of restoring the ‘family honor’.  This thing called ‘family honor’ is a very curious beast not just in Pakistan, but also in India.  It is quite fragile and vulnerable, and it’s basically used to control and make women conduct themselves in a certain way.  The more docile and submissive they are, the more this creature will find sustenance.

  This pious cant about honor and tradition has been effectively used to keep the patriarchal order intact.  A woman was saddled with the soul destroying burden of being the repository of the family’s shame and honor.  A kind of human receptacle where the clan would pour into all of their fears and anxieties.  As if how she lived or not lived validated their own identity.  Qandeel Baloch’s very existence tapped into this primal fear of the reversal of the established order.  Whether to kill somebody for the choice of her lifestyle, or to harass and hound someone because you didn’t agree with the choice of their life partner is the symptom of the same malaise that is corroding the soul of a large section of society.

  For every sister like Qandeel, there are many brothers like Waseem (that was his name), lurking in the shadow, marinating in their misogyny.  Consumed by their impotent rage to make sense of the modern world and its women, these hateful dregs of humanity will not hesitate to murder their own wife, mother and sister.  I mourn for you Qandeel.  We’ve failed you as a society in fact, we are as much complicit in your murder as the actual man who did it.  We, in our self-righteous notion as to how ‘good girls’ are supposed to lead their life, we in our insatiable appetite for gossip, we through our constant condemnation and judgment, have all contributed our bit in bringing about this horrible tragedy.  

So, after a lot of bumpy ride, the Republican Party’s convention finally came to its conclusion in Cleveland, Ohio with Donald Trump formally anointed as the nominee to take on Hillary Clinton come November in what’s going to be perhaps the most bitterly contested and brutal elections in our lifetime.  Add not least because of such high stakes involved considering the current the geopolitical and economic situation not only in the United States, but around the world.  What is also going to be unique about this election is the personalities of the two contenders on either side of the political divide, but particularly what Mr. Trump has brought to the table as an opponent to the quintessential establishment person and Democratic nominee Ms. Hillary Clinton.  In what is undoubtedly the longest acceptance speech in the history of campaign nomination, Donald Trump, while essentially preaching to the converted, tried to paint a dark vision for the people in the event of him not becoming the President.  His acrid rhetoric was based on grievance and contempt, old hurt and new.  There was no humor, only poisonous anger directed against his opponent.  It is mind boggling the way he is putting out and projecting himself as the panacea for all the ills affecting the American society.  Can one man really have all the answer to the very complex problems of our time? Mr. Trump seems to think so.  “Get me into the office and I will fix everything.  I know how to get things done.”  If the main purpose of the convention was to humanize Mr. Trump, it wasn’t too much of a success because if you don’t feel empathy or sympathy for that person, you can’t see the humane side of him.  And in that cauldron of paranoia and prejudice, it was very difficult to see the human dimension of Donald Trump.  Whatever may be happening in America right now, things are never as dire as they seem, they never are.  But judging by the oratory employed, you would think “after me, deluge.”  I am just thinking what will happen if Mr. Trump is not able to achieve his dream of becoming the President of the United States after  all.  Because make no mistake, until now, every six out of ten American voter has a very unfavorable view of Donald Trump.  So something will have to change drastically between now and November to install him in the Oval Office.  He has staked so much on this like a maniac, really put himself out there, on the line.  I don’t know how religious he is, but he must be fancying himself as Moses parting the red sea and leading the faithful to the Promised Land.  I shudder to think how will he deal with failure.  Only time will be the judge.

So much has already been written and spoken about ever since the news broke of the passing of Muhammad Ali two days ago, that there is hardly anything I could add more.  But I feel impelled by the force of my emotions to say something.  Muhammad Ali's life was a brilliant example of the fact that you don't have to be perfect to be great.  He was arguably the greatest sportsman is a given, but very few people in history have transcended their chosen profession in life and become something larger than the sum of their whole, and he was one of them.  It was as if the whole world was not big enough to contain his manic energy.  So much of our life is about direction, the relentless momentum, in fact, he said that if you are the same person at fifty as you were at twenty, then you have wasted thirty years of your life.  He was a fighter to the core when he refused to be drafted for Vietnam war which he considered to be unjust on the ground that the poor Vietnamese thousands of miles away posed no threat to the United States, and he was a conscientious objector.  He suffered a grave setback to his professional career when his licence was revoked for three years for dereliction of national duty, until his suspension was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1971.  If anyone else would say I am the greatest, you would think of him as a deluded braggart, but Ali had this immense self belief to walk the walk and talk the talk.  

   He had the choice to keep his head down, follow the straight and narrow, in other words, remain non-controversial, and he could have minted millions.  But not him,  instead he decided to become a tireless advocate for the rights of his people and an uncompromising critic of racial prejudice widely prevalent at the time.  The man was a true showman, he loved the theater of the boxing arena where he literally floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee, at least during the first half of his career.  There was a time when a vast section of white America practically hated him, but he didn't care because what was more important was to stand by your conviction.  If Dr. King provided a peaceful resistance to the racial bigotry, then  Ali along with Malcolm X gave the whole thing a radical edge.   In the end, a grateful nation did make up and some more when he was given the highest honor of the land, The Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005.  It remains one of the most moving sight in sports history when Muhammad Ali, his body badly shaking due to the ravages of Parkinson, lighting up the Olympic torch at the Atlanta games in 1996 with so much dignity and solemnity.  We will not have another Muhammad Ali.